Linux-libre: Creating a free kernel package

Back in early 2005, a group from the deep south of South America set
out to create the youngest member of the FSF Network. After a few
false starts, we have managed to form a growing team of software
freedom activists from all over Latin America.

After the realization that promoting free software and its use is much
narrower than our goal of promoting software freedom, we adopted the
motto "Be Free!", and a very social conscience-oriented discourse and
behavior. Nearly all of our actions gravitate around enabling
software users to be free, and educating them to seek freedom.

One of our first realizations in the "Be Free!" mindset was that,
while there were a number of free system GNU/Linux distributions, the
largest free software communities were around distributions that did
not qualify as free system distributions, but that contained few
non-free components. Unfortunately, just removing those was not
viable, because one of them was the non-free kernel Linux.

We realized that, in order to enable people to “Be Free!” without
abandoning the communities and the distributions they were fond of, it
would be useful to offer them free kernels. So, building upon the
work started in gNewSense and expanded by BLAG, FSFLA took over the
maintainership of Linux-libre, a free distribution of the kernel
Linux, aimed at free system distributions and free human beings.

Nowadays, we maintain and publish free source releases based on
various non-free Linux releases, along with programs we wrote to
automate their cleaning up. Furthermore, in a server kindly offered by
the FSF, we maintain, host, and encourage the Linux-libre community to
maintain binaries of Linux-libre that can be used as drop-in
substitutes for the non-free Linux binaries offered by various
GNU/Linux distributions, and as the kernels offered by GNU/Linux-libre
free system distributions.

Maintaining freed distributions of Linux based on its various releases
seems to have been key for its wide adoption among free system
distributions. Once this was done, it didn't take long for all of the
free GNU/Linux distributions, recommended by the GNU Project for their
commitment to software freedom, to adopt Linux-libre, and for a number
of new free GNU/Linux-libre distributions to appear.

It is telling that, aside from gNewSense and BLAG, all the recommended
Free GNU/Linux-libre distributions were created by Latin developers,
most of them from Latin America. Ututo, Musix GNU+Linux and Dragora
started in Argentina, whereas dyne:bolic and Trisquel have their roots
in Italy and Spain, respectively. Furthermore, it appears that there's
soon to be a new entrant from Venezuela.

There must be more than Latino blood to it. An average Brazilian might
be tempted to credit the nearly-dominant presence of Argentina in the
list to gaucho pride, but that would be inappropriate and most
certainly wrong. It is not hard to notice how important freedom is
for the Argentinian people in general, even more so in the free
software communities there.

It may have to do with their having got out of a particularly nasty
military dictatorship not too long ago. This can't be all, for a
number of other Latin American countries also got out of military
dictatorships just as recently, and their peoples don't set out to
create free system distributions as often.

Nevertheless, fighting dictatorships certainly changes the social
fabric in a significant way for free software: people deprived of
something as important as freedom are more likely to value it in its
various dimensions. And then, the dictatorships were long preceded by
colonization and slavery-based economy, and the echoes of the
struggles for sovereignty, independence and respect for human rights
and essential freedoms can still be perceived.

Some kind of social conscience and unity seems to have come out of
this misery, which explains why free software is making such inroads
into governments in so many countries in this region. After all,
sovereignty and independence are nothing but freedom applied to
countries and peoples.

Let's hope that social misery is not a requirement for learning to
value one's own freedom, and to respect others', for then there's hope
some day we can all "Be Free!"